Yeah, I bought a $1000 device, but somehow Apple gets to decide what I run on it? I just cannot see how that is a desireable situation.
It's true for every video game console, which have run to up to $600. I'm not sure if $400 makes that much of a difference.
I’m not really aware of any console manufacturer other than Nintendo that spends as much effort trying to prevent me from doing that.
Generally I don’t want to do it with my console either, as I explicitly buy it to play games. The same thing is not true for my phone, which is very much a general purpose device.
Sad to see how apple drones agree with this. It is fair for a hosting company to require a per download fee, but it has nothing to do with ingame purchases.
So whats going on here. Apple wasn't happy with one of the apps from Epic games (Fortnite), so pulled the other apps that were compliant?
Is that what happened. That leaves quite a bad taste in my mouth. Apple removed apps that were following the rules to try and enforce their rules on one that wasn't.
I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…
I doubt Apple could or would really want to ban the Unreal engine, right? I guess at some point Epic could create a new Apple account again (perhaps after some court order by a judge) and just continue testing their engine on devices. They don't need to release games themselves on the AppStore, as long as 3rd party devs can release software based on the Unreal engine on the AppStore. I think what Epic wants to see go…
App Store takes the same 30% as Xbox, Sony, Switch, Target, Walmart, Walgreen, etc...
Purchase a console game at Walmart? Walmart takes their cut after the console creator took their cut. In fact if you think your game is gonna sell like crazy that you press (DVD/BluRay) 1 million copies, you are in debt to the Console manufacturer for their 30%.
But where is the equivalent of the browser-ballot screen? [1] Why don't we apply the same principle to the App store? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
There is nothing stopping you from building any open source app with xCode and deploying it to your iPhone.
Think of the iPhone as a mall then - it still gets to pick its tenants by whatever criteria it sees fit (that are not illegal, and fees are not illegal). Epic is not winning this one. Edit: added the bit about fees.
Well, how could Epic continue developing unreal engine for iOS without a developer account?
> Apple originally wanted to terminate the developer accounts of both Epic Games and Epic International, a separate account linked to Epic's Unreal Engine used by third-party app developers, but a judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Apple from doing so.
But this it just a temporary restraining order, right? Not final yet? Epic's future on apple ecosystem is not clear yet.
Apple is truly doing themselves a disservice here, if Epic wins this battle Apple will undoubtedly be painted as the bad guy, and other major companies will smell blood in the water when it comes taking down a competitor. Case in point; Tinder, Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify have all openly backed Epic and started to call attention to features that are impacted by this 30% fee. Status quo isn't going to cut it, and it…
Apple is following their own rules and giving discounts or exceptions would potentially open up more legal issues.
My feeling is that this whole situation is mostly going as Tim Sweeney intended. He was itching for a fight, wanted to sue Apple. The harsher that Apple retaliates, the better Epic's court case. Apple is playing right into his hands. Did Sweeney anticipate Apple's threat to Unreal Engine? Maybe, maybe not. But the temporary restraining order did block that threat, at least for now. I don't think Epic ever intended to…
> The harsher that Apple retaliates, the better Epic's court case. Apple is playing right into his hands.
Courts almost never evaluate specific cases based on broader patterns of behaviour... they are always narrowly focused on specific issues.
This might help in the media/social media debate, but I doubt it helps much in court. The bigger piece Epic bites off the harder their battle will be.